Friday, April 15, 2011

Cover art and author photos: Do they matter?

An anonymous poster commented on my books over on Konrath's blog today, here is part of her/his commentary:

"The "Unbroken Hearts" series of covers looks slapped together-- the whole series LOOKS like it was done on the cheap. We can see that. Even the author's photo on the Amazon profile is an obvious amateur shot-- stuff in the background, no make-up, weird expression, etc. Take a look at Tina Fey's picture and you'll see what a good authors' photo should look like."

Is the author photo a deal maker/breaker for you when purchasing a book? In the ebook age, when the book cover isn't staring at you from your coffee table or bookshelf, does it matter so much? Does the cover have a function beyond indicating genre and making the initial sale? Should the author spend big money on cover art?

1 comment:

I don't care about the author photo. I mean, I take a look, just out of curiosity's sake, but that's it.

As for your covers looking slapdash, I checked them out after I read that commenter's, um, comment: I have no idea what he/she/they is talking about. I think your covers are beautiful. I'm not in your demographic, and I don't play a graphic artist on TV ;-), but those are some lovely covers.

About Me

Anna Murray grew up as a younger child in a diverse family of nine in rural Wisconsin. She honed her writing skills as part of a classical liberal arts education at a small Midwestern college, and embarked on an unusual career path that included jobs teaching English (British American Institute, Madrid Spain), editing and training at an educational testing firm, computer programming, technical writing and training, systems analysis for a Fortune 500 corporation, and owning an electronic publishing business.
She resides in the beautiful St. Croix Valley of Minnesota.